


Part-timer

by Twilight Fang (Asthenos)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Sub Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 08:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asthenos/pseuds/Twilight%20Fang
Summary: Derek gets a part-time job. Stiles takes advantage. But there are always complications.





	Part-timer

**Author's Note:**

> I just started watching Teen Wolf again for the 2nd time and then decided to finish this fic idea that I’d left hanging around collecting dust.
> 
> Any and all comments are always loved and appreciated! ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

“Stiles, I hate pancakes,” Malia stated in a bored, matter-of-fact tone as she glowered at the menu belonging to Beacon Hills’ new Smilely Pancakes restaurant.

The insanely popular pancake chain had just opened up a new location on the south corner of Costco’s vast - yet overly crowded - parking lot. Smilely Pancakes had started off as a family owned diner in a small Pennsylvanian town, before exploding onto the Hollywood scene in an attempt to rid the world of health nuts. Now there was a Smilely Pancakes in just about every happening neighborhood. Beacon Hills had sluggishly held back in welcoming the overhyped restaurant to its town so as not to pervert its anachronistic blandness. Unfortunately, in the end, a large group of youths petitioning City Hall for more worldly brand names and well known establishments had gotten their way. Not only had Smiley Pancakes pried its way into Beacon Hills’ forbidden territory, but it had brought part-time jobs at abysmal wages and low quality maple syrup with it.

“Come on. You haven’t even tried the pancakes yet,” Stiles pleaded. He could not allow Malia to take off and leave him at the table alone. At least not until he got to taste one of those towering fluffy pancakes. There was a minimum occupancy of two people per table, and Stiles dreaded the thought of having to share with some psychopath he didn’t know.

“I don’t need to try them to know that I don’t like pancakes,” Malia said stubbornly. “I hate pancakes. Frozen pancakes, pancake mix... super thin pancakes with ham, cheese, and other crap on top. They’re all the same.”

“Um... those aren’t pancakes. They’re crepes,” Stiles helpfully pointed out.

“And I especially hate your dad’s pancakes. He’s a lousy cook. The worst.”

Stiles groaned. Although he had to admit that his dad was indeed the worst cook ever, hearing someone other than himself say so kind of hurt his feelings. “Aw, that’s not nice. He’s not _that_ bad.”

“I found a piece of a broken plastic spatula _inside_ one of his pancakes.”

“Oh.” Well, that would probably account for the pancake phobia. Still, they hadn’t waited in line for over an hour just to head home with an empty stomach. “Can you just sit still and not break anything until after I’ve ordered and finished my pancake? I’ll take you out for pizza afterwards.” With Malia, negotiating always turned into bribery. It was just easier for Stiles to emotionally deal with, and quicker for Malia to understand.

“Two pizzas, Stiles. And I want the pizza man’s phone number.”

“You want what now?” Stiles had been distracted by the sight of one of the waiters moving away from the booth behind them.

“You heard me. I want his number. _And_ his date of birth, height, weight, sexual orientation, and marital status.”

The mental anguish that Stiles had to deal with to force Malia to accompany him places! Sometimes Stiles felt like he might be better off appearing like a creepy loner with no friends. Because this one was going to cost him a punch in the face or a restraining order. “Yeah, I heard you.” _You want me to sexually harass the pizza man on your behalf. Sure, Malia. No problem! Stiles doesn’t need his pretty face for college._

“Could you also make sure that he’s not suffering from erectile dysfunction?”

“_Malia_!” Stiles said sharply. “I am not asking your pizza man crush if his tool is permanently facing south!”

“Are you ready to order?”

Stiles whirled around to feast his eyes on the most mouthwatering waiter he had ever seen. Wearing a white t-shirt that was obviously too tight, and skimpy black shorts that revealed a nicely shaped ass, as well as some fine long legs, Derek Hale was just about the sexiest server to ever walk the planet. Nobody had asked him to shave the attractive dark fuzz on his face, or to cover up his bare arms, which just raised his sex appeal instead of making him appear indecent. And that hat! That cute yellow floppy hat in the shape of a pancake with a goofy smile was so adorable on him. Although a tad incongruous with his moody frown and standoffish body language. Whoever had hired Derek hadn’t done so because the wolf was pleasant to be around. In fact, none of the waiters or waitresses had been chosen because they were particularly good with people. There was enough eye candy to go around for everyone to enjoy. The only difference between Derek and the other long legged, shiny-eyed employees was that all the others knew how to smile.

“Derek! What a surprise! I didn’t know that you worked here,” Stiles practically gushed with false astonishment.

“Whatever,” Derek muttered. “Order something so that I can get to the next table before they complain to my manager.”

“I’m not sure what to order...” Stiles picked up the menu and made a show of pondering over the three choices that were listed. Pancakes with maple syrup. Pancakes with ice cream. Or Pancakes with jam. In all honesty, the selection sounded like crap, and the pictures below each description didn’t look much better. If the food tasted as bad as it looked, it definitely couldn’t be the reason for so many loyal repeat customers. Perhaps being able to see the shape of Derek’s taut nipples through his t-shirt explained why his tables were getting more traffic than anyone else’s. _Is it just me or is the air conditioning awfully high in here?_

“I thought you wanted to order the—.”

Stiles kicked Malia from under the table before she could ruin his interaction with Derek, as limited as it currently was. “Do the pancakes come with real maple syrup? Or the imitation stuff?”

In response to the completely idiotic question, Derek folded his arms in front of that godly sculpted chest of his and frowned deeper. “What do you mean ‘imitation stuff’?”

“You know, the watered down sugar-water slash chemical additive mix. It looks like maple syrup, and kind of tastes like maple syrup, but there’s no actual maple syrup in it.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Can you find out?”

“Can I find out?! You’re joking, right? You don’t seriously want me to go back to the kitchen to read the label on some sticky, expired bottle of goo.”

It took a great effort for Stiles to keep his mouth shut and not respond to the disgusting revelation that Derek had just shared with them. “Maybe I’ll just have a coffee.”

“You can’t just order a coffee. The rules are one order per person.”

“Then we’ll both have a coffee,” Malia offered helpfully.

“_No_,” Derek grated out between his clenched teeth. “You’re both going to order a pancake. And you’re going to eat it and like it. Then you’re going to pay for it, tip me, and get the hell out of here.”

“Someone doesn’t have a very good attitude today,” Stiles teased. But he was really enjoying himself. Here he was forcing Derek to endure his leisurely visual appraisal, while pestering the hell out of him with anal questions. And poor Derek had to take the abuse if he wished to keep his seven dollar an hour job... and that cute hat.

“Derek, you suck at this job more than I suck at strip poker.”

Both Stiles and Derek could only stare at Malia in bewilderment. They were most likely better off not asking why she was playing strip poker or who she was playing with.

“I’ll have the pancake with ice cream and Malia will have the pancake with jam,” Stiles finally decided. Anything had to be better than that carcinogenic maple syrup substitute that Derek had just described.

Carefully holding his tiny menu pad still in his left hand, Derek jotted down their order with an ink deficient pen in his right. “With coffee?” He asked.

“You have really pretty writing,” Stiles observed as he practically leaned over the table in order to watch Derek write. “I like the way you loop the ends of your p’s.” Without asking for permission, he took hold of Derek’s hand to run his thumb over the wolf’s fingers. “And your fingers are so articulated. Look at that flexibility.” He smirked when Derek tried to pull away from him in a panic. The wolf was not used to being touched by others, especially not sinister perverts like Stiles who did things like stalk his obsession to find out what his working hours were and what tables he would be serving.

Derek finally managed to yank his hand back and was now giving Stiles a wary look. “Are you trying to get me fired?”

“For what?” Stiles asked innocently.

“Because you just... You were...” Derek broke off to heave a great sigh of frustration. “Just what are you trying to pull here?”

“It isn’t a crime to admire someone’s hands, is it, Malia?”

Sitting across the table with her eyes bugging out of her head, Malia slowly made an abstract negative gesture. Or at least that’s what it looked like. It could have also been a bizarre way of shaking her hair loose, because you never could be sure with women nowadays. Especially when they snagged their claws on the furniture and made growling sounds when taking a nap out on the roof.

“See, Derek. Nobody’s trying to get anyone fired. Now off you go to get us our pancakes.” Stiles made a shooing gesture with his hand, which got those big luminous sea-green eyes glaring at him. Okay, so maybe Derek might have misinterpreted the action as a sign for a dog to go off and play. Oh well, no harm done.

As soon as Derek was out of earshot, Malia gave Stiles a dirty look. “You’re scum,” she said simply, pulling out her cell phone to begin cyberstalking the pizza man. “Dragging me to some pancake dump just so you can molest Derek at his minimum wage job,” she grumbled.

“And there’s a pizza man in it for you,” Stiles reminded her.

“Oh, right. Then in that case, you can be as touchy feely as you want. So long as you get me what _I_ want.”

While Stiles was waiting for his pancake, he leaned over the back of his booth to observe what was going on in the kitchen. Even though the pancakes were being made by regular humans - also underpaid teenagers - in the back, they were flying off the griddle at inhuman speed. No sooner had one plate of pancakes materialized on the counter for a bouncy waitress or beefy waiter to pick it up than three or four more appeared in its place. It was like an automated system run by robots that lacked any off switch, or a legally mandatory break time.

“Dude, turn around and stop breathing on my pancake,” came a voice from the other booth.

“Scott?”

“Stiles?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m having pancakes with my mom. What are you doing here?”

Not wanting to answer that question for fear of incriminating himself, Stiles spun around and dropped back down into his seat. What was he doing here? Did he even have a game plan? Or a goal of any sort? Was he just going to toy with Derek every time the wolf came to the table? Or was he going to be a man and ask the sexy pancake waiter out? If he could risk his physical safety to get Malia her pizza man, the least he could do was make a similar play for his own long-standing crush.

Like a ninja devoid of any sound, Derek reappeared at their table balancing two plates of pancakes and two coffees in his arms. When Stiles yelped at the sudden sight of him, Derek nearly clumsily dropped everything onto the floor. If Stiles hadn’t quickly recovered to grab the plates, the poor wolf would have found himself abruptly unemployed.

“Accident averted,” Stiles congratulated himself as he set Malia’s despised pancakes down in front of her.

“There wouldn’t have been an accident if you hadn’t startled me.”

Grinning foolishly at the lovably clumsy wolf, Stiles found his attention drawn to the name tag pinned to Derek’s t-shirt. It stupidly said, _Hi, I’m Derek. I love pancakes_. Stiles wondered if that was even true. “It’s not my fault that you scare so easily. But anyway, what’s with the pancakes? Do you have a thing for fluffy cakes and maple syrup? Or are you saving up for something?”

“That’s none of your business,” Derek replied moodily, about to take off again to serve someone else.

“It is if you want a big, fat tip.” Somehow, Stiles’ taunt came off sounding like an invitation loaded with sexual innuendo.

Much to Stiles’ delight, and Malia’s annoyance, Derek lingered at their table for a bit longer. “How big of a tip?”

Licking his lips to moisten them, because they were suddenly dry as hell, Stiles lured Derek even closer. “I’m talking about a really _big_ tip. Like so big that it won’t even fit in your pants — I mean pocket!” Okay, so maybe Stiles didn’t have the ability to talk dirty while making it sound completely innocent.

For a moment, Derek stood there with his face completely blank, processing what Stiles had said. Then he blushed and dropped his gaze to the floor, acting as if he had _finally_ \- for the love of God - picked up on the not-so-subtle hints that Stiles had been giving him for years. After what seemed like an eternity of awkward silence, coupled with Malia maliciously stuffing her face full of pancakes, Derek looked back up at Stiles with those beautiful sea-green wolffish eyes of his. “So that’s how much?” He asked softly.

Whatever Derek was saving up for had to be really important for him to be so obsessed with monetary amounts. Well, he was in luck because Stiles was a sucker for those big sad eyes, along with those expressive bushy eyebrows and all that kissable facial hair. “I’ll give you twenty if you tell me what it’s for.”

“Twenty percent?” Derek asked naively.

“No. Twenty dollars.” Stiles sighed when Derek leaned in close enough to sweeten the air with his warm, wild scent. Romancing a wolf sure was costly, but well worth the investment.

“I want to visit Disney World,” Derek whispered in a secretive tone, too embarrassed to risk being overheard by any of his peers, or Scott and his mother who were laughing away at the table behind them.

“You want to visit Disney World,” Stiles repeated at just as low a volume. With someone like Derek, Stiles had been expecting the wolf to list racing car parts or a gym membership as prime motivators for his ten-hour-a-day summer job. But Disney World? How charming was that?! Derek had never been to Disney World and was now saving up to go with...? Who was he going to go with? “Who are you planning on going with?”

Derek just shrugged and looked sad. “I was thinking of going by myself.” But what his expression really said was that nobody would want to go with him. He had no friends, after all. And no family. The only person who might go with him was Derek’s uncle, Peter, but that freak of nature would probably shove Derek off of a rollercoaster just so he could be the only Hale left standing.

Who in their right mind would pass up on the opportunity to go to a theme park with an introverted wolf like Derek? Just thinking of all the rides that Stiles could squish Derek into a corner on, or all the theme park food that they could lick and nibble at together, had him shivering with gleeful anticipation. “I’ll take you,” Stiles blurted out before he could jam his foot into his mouth. “We can go after my final exams next week.”

Neither of them paid any attention when Malia made a hacking noise and got up to find some water to wash down the pancakes that had gotten stuck in her throat. If Derek had been better at his job, he might have gotten her some water himself, but he was too busy flirting with Stiles.

“You really want to go with me?” Derek sounded half hopeful and half skeptical. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. It’ll be fun. Just you, me, and Mickey Mouse.”

The corners of Derek’s lips twitched, as if he were fighting back a smile, but he had to ruin it with his declaration of, “I hate Mickey Mouse.”

Who hated Mickey Mouse? What possible reason could Derek have for hating the three-fingered mouse that brought joy to children and adults all over the globe? “Then which character do you like?”

“Stitch,” Derek admitted with a cute, bashful grin. “He’s the most entertaining.”

Now that wasn’t stereotypical at all. Derek the werewolf supporting Stitch the alien dog. Of course it wouldn’t have been Pluto the dog because he was far too mundane and uninspiring for a wolf with Derek’s imagination.

“Can’t argue with that. I kind of like that Kung fu dragon from Mulan. What’s his name again?”

Stiles could have continued their lazy small talk all day. It was the most that he’d ever gotten out of Derek and, with the way Derek was now smiling, their conversation was showing the potential for turning into something more meaningful. Unfortunately, some asshole had to go and ruin it by shouting loudly for his waiter - namely Derek.

“How long do I have to wait for my fucking pancakes?!”

“I’ll be right back,” Derek said, actually sounding apologetic, as he rushed off to get the man’s pancakes.

Once the wolf was gone, Stiles sagged back against his seat with a dopey smile on his face. Derek hadn’t refused his offer, which meant that they were going to spend a weekend in Disney World - together. They would start off slow, of course, just as two friends roaming around the magical world of Disney. But then they’d start holding hands, and Stiles would buy Derek a plush souvenir - one of those giant Stitch toys that Derek would not be able to find space for once he got home. After that, Derek would be obligated to allow Stiles to kiss him. First Stiles would kiss those bushy eyebrows, one by one, before kissing the wolf’s blushing cheeks, and then he would caress his hands over that fuzzy beard in order to—.

“Stupid jerk!! Look at what you did!”

Stiles heard the crash after the shout, only realizing that they had happened in reverse after he turned around to spot Derek beside a table at the back, a broken dish and chunks of fluffy pancakes scattered all over the floor. The customer - a middle-aged man with bearlike arms and a scornful expression - was glaring at Derek as if he were a brainless twit.

“Why did you grab the plate?” Derek asked in a flustered tone as he surveyed the mess that he was now going to have to clean up.

“I wouldn’t have had to grab the plate if you weren’t so fucking uncoordinated and slow!”

Derek responded swiftly and automatically, as if he had received some sort of group training on abusive customers. “Sir, could you kindly lower your voice and refrain from swearing? There are children present.” Derek most definitely wouldn’t have inserted the word kindly into any of his sentences, nor would he have phrased the request as a question. No, the Derek that Stiles was familiar with would have told the man to shut up and eat his pancakes or get out.

“Is that what they taught you in school?” Mr. Bear-arms snickered. “How to make the paying customer look like the asshole in order to calm him down? But you didn’t graduate from high school, did you, Derek? The whole lot of you Hales are nothing but high school drop outs and losers.”

At first it looked like Derek was about to indignantly set the man straight on how he had actually graduated from high school, having been quite keen on literature and history. But, after a second of carefully deliberating the consequences, Derek chose to remain silent.

Stiles had recently stumbled upon - illegally hacked into the school’s mainframe in order to obtain - Derek’s high school transcript. It wasn’t his fault that the school’s security system was so weak that a game of Pac Man could have defeated it. Through the transcript details, and the attached profile, Stiles had learned that Derek was quite gifted in creative writing and interpretive thought. Derek also scored high on an aptitude test for emotional sensitivity and compassion, which explained why he tended to make such an excellent target when it came to being tortured by the enemy.

“You’re nothing but a pretty face with an empty head,” the man continued as he watched Derek bend down to begin picking up thick shards of cheap earthenware.

Stiles figured that if Derek could remain in control with no assistance during a full moon, the wolf could probably deal with a hotheaded customer whose main objective seemed to be to provoke him into a fight. However, that last comment apparently got under Derek’s skin because he couldn’t resist muttering an insult of his own.

“Better than a scary face with a bloated head.”

Had Derek known just how volatile the customer was, he probably would not have opened his mouth. Stiles jerked back in shock when Mr. Bear-arms kicked Derek in the lower back, sending the wolf sprawling into that mess of jagged dish pieces. Bracing himself with his hands, Derek let out a cry of pain when his palms were sliced open by those sharp edges. Before Derek could recover, the customer stooped down, hauled Derek up by the collar of his shirt and whacked the wolf across the face, knocking him back onto the floor. But he did not release Derek. He pulled back his fist again, preparing to punch the helpless wolf into oblivion.

In the blink of an eye, Stiles was out of his seat and charging towards the back. Derek was undoubtedly stunned at what had just taken place, and struggling to heal the open gashes in his hands, because he was sluggish to react. Before Mr. Bear-arms could break Derek’s jaw, Stiles set himself upon the brute. Quite a number of times in the past Stiles had thrown a punch only to end up injuring himself more than the face he’d been aiming for. Not this time. This time he was so enraged that he wouldn’t have noticed if he cracked all his knuckles on that bullish face. He pushed the man back by his throat, preventing him from striking Derek again, right before he landed a punch right between the bastard’s eyes. And before anyone could do or say anything else, Stiles punched the man a few more times, dully noting that the bastard’s reflexes seemed to be impaired.

“Fucking prick!” Stiles snarled, ready to punch the man again. How dare he hurt Derek? Poor innocent, hardworking Derek whom Stiles loved enough to get into a fistfight with a total stranger over. And to think that it had happen on the one and only day Stiles had managed to coax a smile out of him.

At close range, Stiles could smell the overpowering stench of whisky and sweat, identifying it as a combination that he often came across inside one of the sheriff’s holding cells. That made it even worse. This loser was drunk and violent inside a family restaurant. And he had just hurt Stiles’ sweet wolf!

A chair toppled over as Stiles’ momentum sent them both tumbling to the floor, with Stiles on top. And on top was where he stayed, getting in a few more punches before he was pulled off by a very nervous Scott.

“Did you see what he did?!” Stiles demanded to know, ignoring the stinging in his jaw that belatedly told him that he’d been punched back.

“Everyone saw what he did,” Scott said in the attempt to pacify Stiles while Malia physically restrained the bigger man. She made Stiles’ altercation with the man seem like a kiddy fight, effortlessly locking Mr. Bear-arms in a vicelike grip and hammering his face down onto the tabletop to knock him out. “They also saw what you did. You’d both better cool it before someone calls the police.”

“What I did?!”

“Stiles, you knocked out two of his teeth and yanked out a fistful of his hair,” Scott calmly informed him. “I think that you’re even now.”

_Like hell! _Nothing could make up for the way that man had lashed out at Derek. “Derek!” Stiles turned to the wolf to find the right side of his face an angry shade of red, and his sea-green eyes swimming with unshed tears. “Are you okay?”

Derek made an effort to nod mutely, but he looked badly shaken up and upset. Given his heightened wolf senses, he was surely shamed further by the unwanted stares and whispers that were now directed at him. If there was one thing that Derek was sensitive about, it was attracting the wrong kind of attention. “It was stupid of me to think that I could do something normal,” he said dully. “It always ends the same way, with someone pounding on me.” He slowly got to his feet and removed his identity pin, followed by his cute pancake hat. He dropped both onto the floor and turned away.

“Derek...” Stiles helplessly watched as Derek made his way out the back exit with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed low.

“Stiles, Malia and I will handle the mess in here. You go deal with Derek,” Scott instructed.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Stiles would have done that anyway. He couldn’t let Derek drive away in such a cloud of depression. The wolf might accidentally drive off the road or leave the county in disgrace. The worst part about it was that Derek was acting as if he deserved to be hit. Like physical abuse was just part of the role that he played in society. It hurt Stiles to hear the self-blame in Derek’s voice. After an incident like today, Derek might retreat to a secluded location and never show his face again.

Stiles found Derek out in the rear parking lot with one of his claws extended. The wolf was trying to slide it into the lock of his black Camaro but was not having much luck. His claw wasn’t thin enough to slip into such a narrow slot. Although that wasn’t stopping him from trying. If he kept at it, he would ruin the lock completely and screw his chances of getting back into his car.

“Did you forget your keys inside?” Stiles asked in a neutral tone as he approached.

Wordlessly nodding, Derek went back to what he had been doing. But when Stiles entered his personal space, Derek paused to address him. “Thank you for what you did back there, Stiles. I hope you didn’t hurt your hand.”

“Who cares about my hand,” Stiles said huskily. “I care more about what that bastard did to you.” He laid a hand on Derek’s shoulder, feeling the wolf tremble at the contact. “You were doing such a good job juggling plates and taking orders, but then that asshole had to go and fuck things up for you.” It was important that Stiles praise Derek for a job well done because it had taken a lot of courage for the wolf to apply for a position in the real world. And he had needed a great deal of patience and a lot of stamina in order to keep that job for an entire week. Most people didn’t last a day because the workload was exhausting, but not for Derek, mainly because he was in such spectacular shape. For a wolf like Derek, lugging around platefuls of pancakes was an ultra light workout. The only hard part was not dropping things... or getting pissed off at the customers.

“You don’t have to spare my feelings,” Derek said gloomily, giving up on the lock to move closer to Stiles.

“I’m being serious, Derek. You’re my all-time favorite waiter. I swear I would pay you to serve me pancakes at home wearing that cute hat and those gluteal defining shorts.”

“Glu-what?” Derek asked in confusion.

Having successfully unbalanced the wolf, Stiles held out both his hands and became serious again. “Show me your hands.”

“They’re fine.” Derek tried to turn away again but Stiles wouldn’t let him.

“I’ve been through this a million times before with you, Scott, and all the others.” Stiles advanced on Derek, trapping him with his back against the Camaro. “Negative emotions screw up the healing process. You might need stitches, or bandages at the very least. Now, either you show me your hands or I’m calling you an ambulance.”

Without saying a word, Derek placed his open hands into Stiles’, palms up, and nervously waited for a verdict. Both palms were still bleeding and looked sore as hell. There was even a small piece of earthenware, which Derek had missed, protruding from the inside of the wolf’s wrist. Thankfully it was nowhere near Derek’s artery, but it had to be painful all the same.

“Hold still,” Stiles commanded. He held Derek’s injured hand in his left, while he expertly removed the shrapnel with his right. He had quite a lot of experience with blood and injuries as a result of his involvement with the dark side of Beacon Hills, so he didn’t hesitate or tremble when he grasped both of Derek’s hands tightly within his own. The pressure he applied gradually stopped the bleeding. After that, he focused his positive energy on Derek, jumpstarting the wolf’s healing process. “You know,” he began conversationally as he waited for Derek to finish healing, “that was the first time that I really got into punching someone. I didn’t even feel it when he punched me back.”

“Maybe you should have your own face seen to before you waste your time on me,” Derek suggested.

“You are _not_ a waste of time,” Stiles said angrily. “And if I hear you implying that you deserved to be hit, I’m going to go back in there and stomp on that asshole’s face. Got it?” Listening to Derek putting himself down hurt a lot more than the throbbing in Stiles’ cheek. “There, all better,” he announced once he was sure that Derek had completely healed. He ran his index finger gently over Derek’s palm and wrist to ensure that there weren’t any missed cuts, but he didn’t release the wolf.

“How did you do that?” Derek asked in wonder.

“I’m a magical Stiles,” he joked, which earned him a look of amazement. The poor wolf was just too gullible. Not giving Derek the chance to pull away, Stiles wrapped both arms around him and hugged him close. “We can talk about it while we’re in Disney World.”

“I haven’t saved enough yet,” Derek protested, although he did instinctively snuggle closer to Stiles.

“What kind of lousy boyfriend would I be if I didn’t pay for you?” Stiles asked with brave hopefulness.

“Boyfriend?” Derek repeated in disbelief. “But you’re not—.”

“I just beat the crap out of a drunken arm wrestler for you,” Stiles reminded him. “Like it or not, I’m your boyfriend now. And boyfriends pay for everything, Disney World tickets included.”

When Derek didn’t reply, Stiles risked looking into the wolf’s handsome face to see that he was quite speechless, but not in an irritated way. On the contrary, Derek couldn’t have looked more touched and flattered by Stiles’ words. And those perfect lips of his were so lush and delicious looking that Stiles couldn’t resist pressing up against Derek to taste them. He caught Derek’s bottom lip between his own, dragging the tip of his tongue over it to elicit a soft moan from the wolf. No claws were rammed into Stiles’ rib cage, and his tongue didn’t become the victim of a fang impaling, so he risked embracing Derek even tighter so that he could enjoy the most incredible, wettest, open-mouthed kiss that he had ever had the pleasure of partaking in. He also discovered that Derek could sigh with pleasure, as well as annoyance and moodiness. But when he was being seduced, Derek made the most incredible sexy noises. What made the kiss even more sensational was Derek actively participating in it.

“What am I?” Stiles asked insistently once the kiss reached its natural conclusion, with him covering Derek’s face in more fluttering kisses as he stroked the wolf’s fuzzy beard.

“My boyfriend,” Derek answered, his voice soft and warm, so unlike his usual grumpy _fuck you _tone.

“And where is your boyfriend taking you next weekend?”

“Disney World,” Derek replied with a dreamy sigh.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

The moment was interrupted by a loud clearing of the throat, followed by some coughing and choking. Stiles turned to see Scott standing there red-faced and having a fit. Keeping his arms around Derek, Stiles waited patiently until Scott got ahold of himself and was able to catch his breath.

“Sorry, bad timing,” Scott apologized hoarsely.

“Yeah, the worst,” Stiles echoed.

“I just came to give Derek this.” He thrust a fat wad of bills in Derek’s direction.

As Derek was counting the money out in mystified confusion, Stiles gave Scott a questioning look. “What the hell is this? Severance pay?” He was pretty sure that part-timers didn’t get paid off when they were fired. And that large amount of money looked like more than Derek would get paid in a week.

“No. It’s from the other customers. They felt bad for Derek and started one of those pay-it-forward things. Oh, and there’s a ten and five in there from my mom,” Scott made sure to add.

Not knowing what to say, Derek just stood there dumbly clutching the money and looking all choked up.

“That was an unbelievably nice gesture! Can you thank everyone for Derek?” Stiles asked, because he doubted that Derek knew how to handle expressing his emotional gratitude.

“Actually... the manager has asked if Derek can come back in and finish the rest of his shift,” Scott informed them with a sheepish grin. “He’s kind of in high demand right now. The other tables are refusing to be served by anyone other than ‘the dark sexy waiter with those super sad eyes’,” Scott quoted what most of the customers were now calling Derek.

“Really?!” Stiles blurted out. What an exciting turn of events! Derek was finally getting the respect and recognition that he so keenly deserved. “So that means he gets to wear that cute pancake hat for another three hours?!”

“Stiles, I don’t like the pancake hat.” Derek fixed Stiles with a plaintive look, which Stiles ignored.

“It’s just another three hours,” Stiles said soothingly, kissing the tip of Derek’s nose to reassure him. “I’ll be there the whole time so you won’t have to worry about anyone else giving you any trouble.”

“What are you going to do in a pancake house for three hours?” Derek reluctantly asked.

“I’ll be doing nothing but staring at you the entire time,” Stiles promised him. “Think you can handle that?”

Derek shrugged and allowed himself to be led back to Smilely Pancakes, and his new crowd of adoring fans.


End file.
